In infix notation, unlike in prefix or postfix notations, parentheses surrounding groups of operands and operators are necessary to indicate the intended order in which operations are to be performed. In the absence of parentheses, certain precedence rules determine the order of operations.

Infix notation may also be distinguished from function notation, where the name of a function suggests a particular operation, and its arguments are the operands. An example of such a function notation would be S(1, 3) in which the function S denotes addition: S(1, 3) = 1 + 3 = 4.